Missouri set to reduce St. Louis minimum wage from $10 to $7.70

Advocates in St. Louis have pushed for fairer labor standards. (Jeff Curry/Getty Images)

Missouri's governor will allow a bill to pass that rolls back St. Louis' minimum wage from $10 back to $7.70, the standard across the state.

Gov. Eric Greitens announced that he won't sign a bill that blocks cities and counties from setting their own minimum wage, enforcing the Missouri standard statewide.

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Without the first-year governor's signature, the law will automatically kick in on Aug. 28.

"Our state needs more private sector paychecks and bigger private sector paychecks," Greitens said in a statement. "Politicians in St. Louis passed a bill that fails on both counts: it will kill jobs, and despite what you hear from liberals, it will take money out of people's pockets."

Fight for $15, a nationwide labor group pushing for increased minimum wages, tweeted last Friday that Greitens' planned move was "disgusting."

The law passed the Missouri senate in May, but hasn't gotten the governor's signature.

Greitens, in his statement explaining why he's neither signing nor vetoing the bill, blames St. Louis politicians as well as state lawmakers for the impasse.

St. Louis workers make at least $10 an hour right now, and are set to make $11 starting in January.

The city first passed its minimum wage increase in 2015, but endured a two-year legal battle with local business groups.

Greitens said he supports a fair wage — and that his citizens are financially suffering — but claimed St. Louis' ordinance is impractical.

Missouris Gov. Eric Greitens said he won't sign a bill that reduces St. Louis' minimum wage, allowing it to pass. (Jeff Roberson/AP)

"It'll hurt them," Greitens said of the hourly wage jump. "This increase in the minimum wage might read pretty on paper, but it doesn't work in practice. Government imposes an arbitrary wage, and small businesses either have to cut people's hours or let them go."

Greitens, a Republican, cited Seattle — one of the first cities to do a major minimum wage hike that sparked a nationwide movement — where he said businesses have been forced to decrease hours to compensate for increased wages.

The measure has cost the typical Seattle worker $125 a month, or $1,500 per year, Greitens claims in a statement.

"Liberals say these laws help people," Greitens said in his statement. "They don't. They hurt them."

Preliminary studies of Seattle's wage hike has shown mixed results, however. A University of California, Berkley study published last month on the city's restaurant industry showed it had few negative impacts on business.

He also pinned the blame on Democrats in the Missouri senate, who put off the minimum wage vote off until the end of the legislative session, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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But Democrats panned Greitens' move, saying he should've put his name on the bill since he's letting it pass.

"Signing it would have shown the fact that he is heartless and that he really doesn't care about the working poor," State Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, who represents St. Louis, told the Post-Dispatch. "So what he didn't want to do is sign a bill to take money out of the pockets of those who already have an increase, but still do so."